Blogging Brings Stuff

How has blogging changed your life? Tell us one thing that is different now than from before you started blogging.

I have stuck with blogging longer than I have done almost anything else in my life – longer than any one job, longer than all relationships with the exception of Ledcat, longer than any project or hobby or interest. But I’ve never stopped to really consider why. I’ve never kept a journal or a diary, never thought about being a writer or anything of that sort. This blog has never been something I saw as a catapult to anything “bigger” – quite the opposite. It has just been something to do.

I could wax rhapsodic about being involved in the fight for equal rights, social justice and very cool other things. I’ve certainly had adventures and made connections and enjoy some of the scrimmages as much as I’ve had awful, hateful things to endure and tried to escape being cyberstalked, etc. It is a mixed bag, but it is a bag that I chose to maintain.

What is different about my life? There’s more stuff in it. Odd, perhaps, considering a blog is virtual.

Since I began doing some occasional reviews, I have books, movies, magazines, and other items being shoved through my mail slot with increasing frequency. I have mementos of adventures. I have tee shirts. I have ticket stubs. I have lots and lots and lots of paper, handouts, flyers, and so forth.

I even have an official Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents bag.

Bag gifted to me by my friend Anne.

There’s more – I have spare batteries for all 3 of my recent cell phones plus chargers and cables and carrying cases. I have spare batteries EVERYWHERE. I have 3 or 4 bags to carry my laptop (it is old and big and heavy) as well as the accessories.

I have pens in my bags and scraps of paper with all sorts of scribbles I can’t interpret. I have business cards from all walks of life. I have visitor badges and lots of lanyards.

There’s a pile of books balanced precariously on the end table that must be read and reviewed soon. Then I’ll have 5 books. Fortunately, I received permission to donate the review copies to the GLCC so that’s helpful.

Thanks to #ThrowBackThursdays and the #WHM blogging, I have old photos piled around my workspace – waiting for my printer to deign to recognize the wireless network so I can scan them.

I have a spare netbook that’s upstairs by my bed. It has its own set of wires and tools.

You know what I don’t have? Or can’t find? The cable for my iPod. While searching for it, I found three unused Netflix envelopes.

I’m a technological packrat. When I killed my last phone, I had to temporarily use my old blackberry while the replacement was en route. So now I have my blackberry and my stratosphere with backup batteries and chargers. In case.

What are the odds I’ll do it again AND there will be a blogging emergency that requires 3 batteries? None. What are the odds I’ll let the sway me to recycle the batteries and donate the phones? None. I’ll just hide everything in my big box of stuff and hope Ledcat doesn’t notice.